poem: at the edge of the clearing

Sun, just after midsummer
grasses at their zenith
and the sky's blue
noisy with the ghost of pigment
intensity of photons

wind in the east
jostling the shrubs in the courtyard
tweaking the flowers' ears
jinking in my hair

*
ahead of us on the track
a couple of small hazy clouds
pretend to stand tall
on the horizon

at the edge of the clearing
our future and possible selves linger
waiting to see
what path we notice

*
and what would it take then
for us to crack and peel back
these ingrown carapaces
that we might stand whole
and bright before the Other

to recalibrate the curtilage
of the heart
that it might become a meadow

for us to trust that we might
enter that meadow, lie down
for as long as we need to
maybe even forever?


– Roselle Angwin